Ponies of fourteen hands or upwards, which would look too small for a full-sized dog-cart in single harness, and would be unable owing to its weight to draw it, look extremely well and make little of the weight when driven as a pair, and can thus be utilized in curricle when perhaps their services in harness would otherwise be lost.
A team of horses, or better still of ponies, can also be driven in the poled dog-cart, provided that the pole has the hook referred to before at the end of it.
Four horses look altogether too big, and the team is too long for the short cart behind it; but a team of ponies, although they also look rather too long, are very much better; and the slight disadvantage of appearance is well counterbalanced by the pleasure of driving them, and by the ease with which long distances can be covered without distress.
Given a good, comfortable, roomy dog-cart and four fairly-trained ponies which are really fit, and no more enjoyable way of travelling about a country can be found for two, three, or even four people. The weight to be drawn is so small compared to the horse-power employed, that all hills can be surmounted at a rapid pace, and long distances can be covered in a single day, without placing any undue strain on the cattle.
The bars, though considerably lighter, are exactly like the bars of a coach, while the leaders’ harness, it is hardly necessary to remark, is precisely the same.
|Cape-cart.| In the Cape-cart, about eighteen inches from the end of the pole, comes a supporting bar or yoke, sometimes called a bugle, the use of which is to prevent the pole from falling to the ground. This bar, usually made of lance wood, about an inch in diameter, and five feet long, can be attached to the pole in several ways, but it is best so to arrange it that it can slide up and down the pole as well as from side to side. Perhaps the best and simplest attachment is obtained by passing a short strap with brass rings at each end of it round the pole, and then putting the yoke through the rings. The middle of the yoke ought to be covered with leather, to prevent it being chafed by the pole.
Though collars can be used, breast harness is nearly always employed, and is much to be preferred on account of the breeching being much more effective than with collars; without a breeching the horses are apt to come back on to the splinter bar.
Neither cruppers nor pads are essential.
FIG. 13.—CAPE-CART HARNESS.